[Project] Various Item Farms (Bait, Crystal Shards, Chlorophyte)

So I'm slowly putting the finishing touches on my main world. After building farms and arenas to obtain almost any item in the game or beat any mob or boss in the game, I'm down to the last few farms:

1) Regular Bait Farm (mainly to get the ball rolling in pre-hardmode before obtaining enough bait rewards from the Angler quests)
2) Crystal Shard Farm (to produce vast quantities of Crystal Bullets or to sell for cash in early hardmode)
3) Chlorophyte farm

The bait farm was on my to-do list for the longest time, until a Red*itor brought to my attention that I could simply use the Truffle Worm farm I have now and use it to farm Glowing Snails above 0 altitude (unfortunately, some sort of spawning bug prevents Glowing Snails from surviving below 0 altitude because they spawn in conjunction with a hostile mob that kills the snails immediately).

The Glowing Snail farm works best in pre-hardmode, because in hardmode the stronger mobs can more easily kill the snails before they reach the player. I get much better rates in pre-hardmode. Here's what it looks like:



There's a dart trap battery on the far right that fires a continuous stream of darts 1 block above the surface so as to not kill the snails. The snails crawl to the player, and they drop down into a small 1-block pit, where they can be collected at the player's leisure. They should be collected quickly though, since they do contribute to lowering the spawn rate if allowed to hang around (the spawn rate drops dramatically once 25-26 snails accumulate in the pit). The edges of the pit are inversely sloped (as can be seen in the pic) which prevents the snails from escaping.

The arena basically follows the construction and dimensions of the truffle worm farm, as shown here:

http://forums.terraria.org/index.php?threads/truffle-worm-afk-farming-guide.4807/

So a challenge to the group: can anyone do better with a bait farm? The one I have generates about 5 snails a minute on average, and can be set to be AFK if the LMB is weighed down to continuously swing the net.


Next, I did a bit of research from the wiki regarding chlorophyte farms, and learned that in the cavern layer or below only 24 chlorophyte ore can spawn within a 38x38 block area. I decided to create my own farm, but also thought it would be a great idea to combine the chlorophyte farm with a crystal shard farm, and mushroom farm to boot. Mushrooms are approprite especially since the chlorophyte bars needs mushrooms to be converted into shroomite bars.

Here's my current set-up:



The chlorophyte farm consists of columns of 20 mud blocks separated by 38 blocks, with 4 "feeder" blocks on the sides of the 20 mud blocks to cause the chlorophyte to spread. Once ready for harvesting, a player mines down through the 20 blocks, and replaces them with new mud blocks. I decided to use an approach by Eastredwoodman identical to the one in the wiki:

http://terraria.gamepedia.com/Guide:Chlorophyte_Ore_Farming

Here's Eastredwoodman's video (a bit dated, since the dimensions he uses no longer work but the general set-up is still sound):



The shard and mushroom harvesting is fully automated, using the approach outlined in ZeroGravitas' item hoiks guide. Here's the wiring:



The wall levers are pulled to actuate the blocks where the mushrooms are or where the shards are attached, and after they fall to the bottom the levers are pulled again to deactuate a bottom hoik that propels the shards and mushrooms to where the player is standing by those levers. Mushrooms and shards are size 2, so a bottom hoik works to propel them.

Here's a link to ZeroGravitas' item hoik guide:

http://forums.terraria.org/index.ph...erate-drops-trawl-fallen-stars-and-more.4140/


So is there any way to improve upon the design? Are there any other item farms I can incorporate into this farm to make it even more productive?

 

This is AMAZING! i never thought to actuate the pearlstones.

I apologize for not being active at all in the last week- ive been really caught up with things.

 

Addressing NPC spawning, can't platforms of mushroom grass be placed with a height difference of 2 between them, in order to prevent larger mobs be spawned? Also, hooking it to a fishing autofarm may allow for *almost* fully AFK farming.

 

That would be a nice idea, linking this farm to a fishing pond! I could have water, lava, and honey ponds (only 300 blocks of each liquid are needed) and for the water pond I'd have to incorporate other biome blocks. I'll be checking on your progress regarding the cavern pond.

Regarding the mushroom grass platforms - they are already separated by 1 block, so any reason why you were thinking of separating them by 2 blocks? Spawning is already prevented everywhere inside the farm due to player-placed background walls.

 

I was referring to the spawn pads , can't multiple platforms be added in the possible spawning areas, in order to allow only snails to spawn, thus allowing for invasions/blood moons to pass without affecting farming? Let me explain what I mean, we have two mobs: Mob A and Mob B, Mob B's height it's bigger, if we build the spawning platforms in such a way only Mob A has enough space to spawn, wouldn't it solve the issue with killed snails? Addressing your question about my prototype of the fish farm, I specially designed that at least one of the 2 farms it's right under surface, in the Underground layer, to allow for such purpose, I've gathered most of the data needed to bring the farm to life, just a few missing.

 

Ah my bad, you were referring to the snail farm, not the mushroom farm. While it is true that having a height difference of 2 will limit the spawns to just snails, it would also hamper the overall spawn rate. However, if we have many mushroom grass platforms 2 blocks apart stacked on top of each other, then the spawn rate might not be affected all that much. I'll have to give that a shot and see if it works! Your suggestion might work very well.

 

OK gave it a try:



Nothing spawned at all. It looks like even mobs that aren't taller than 2 blocks nevertheless need more than 2 blocks to spawn. I seem to recall @W1K commenting on what was required for any mob or boss to spawn (a 3x2 area free of foreground blocks?). Let's have him weigh in on this.

 

Well that's pretty much it, if there is no 3x2 area in the potential spawn area, no spawn can happen, which also seems to apply to all NPCs (and if a theory on why so is actually used, it's probably because zombies are 3x2 and were the first mobs introduced which had to rely on tiles position and considering such mobs are why the system was made, the same limitation was probably kept out of lazyness).

 

Awh, well, that's unfortunate, that means that even using NPCs, the farm it's unusable during HM events or invasions, at the rate the farm produces bait, the player should be able to pass a night of fishing without stopping, though RNGs are unpredictable.

 

Yup, everything from worms to snatchers to bats, sharks (!), dungeon guardian (and probably bosses), etc, etc all need 2 wide x 3 high space to spawn.

Note also that the spawn point on the surface is in the bottom right corner of this rectangle, with an interesting implication: if there is a step up on the block to the left of the spawn point there will be no spawn. This means that an alternative to spawn blocking with lava is quite simply a slope. Left to right, top to bottom, at 45 degrees, across the spawn area. Had that up my sleeve for over 3 months. Any use to anybody?

 

Yes that is potentially useful! In grinders that use lava on both sides and a minecart to pass back and forth below the surface, that sloped block can be used at the edge of where the lava is to block a spawn on that block.

 

Note that I didn't mean this is a trick with angled blocks. It's the positioning of whole (square) blocks. As image below - a slope like that will see no spawns! While sloped down from right to left it will.

 

Ah I see. Oh well, too bad the blocks at the edges of a lava pit enable spawns and there's nothing that can be done about it apparently. I tried various blocks previously (including boulders) but mobs spawned on everything. That aside, it's useful to know that the spawns can be blocked using this 45 degree slope without having to resort to lava pools or to 47+ block high columns.

Back on topic:

http://forums.terraria.org/index.ph...shroom-farm-perfect-for-endgame-rangers.7282/

 

This is interesting science! You guys know every aspect of this game!

 

I know right! They could probably allow you to play terraria in terraria!